In 1987, FCI launched the
Satellite Home Shopping program introducing American products, aimed to combat intense "trade friction" between the United States and Japan, and the second in May. FCI had 22 offices worldwide in 1990. FCI was involved with videogame publishing as well, being one of the early third-party licensees for
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) starting in 1987. Originally, FCI merely published in
North America translations of
video games that were released in Japan mainly by
Pony Canyon, another company from the Fujisankei Communications Group. FCI was well-known at this time for the many
RPG and
Adventure games they released for the NES as conversions from PC games, such as the
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and
Ultima series. Later, FCI began contracting outside development houses to create original games; examples include
WCW Super Brawl Wrestling and
WCW: The Main Event, both developed by
Beam Software of Australia;
Might & Magic III, developed by
Iguana Entertainment; and
Metal Morph and the
Runes of Virtue titles in the
Ultima series, both developed by
Origin Systems. FCI had a long partnership with Origin, starting when Pony Canyon was hired to translate the Ultima PC games for Japan, strengthening through the conversion of
Ultima III,
IV and
V for the NES, followed by
Ultima VI and
VII for the
Super NES, and continuing through the end of FCI's videogame department; a conversion of Origin's PC game
Wing Commander II to the Super NES was in development for release by FCI when they closed their video games division. In the mid-1990s, FCI abandoned video game distribution to concentrate on television operations. Since 1999, Fuji TV, through FCI, has forbidden foreign TV stations from
subtitling its
dramas, a practice that is criticized and has alienated some fans of the genre. ==Published games==